Month: August 2020

Piece 13: When They See Us

Querida # # # #
Peace by Piece

This post is part of a year-long series. If my work is helpful for you, consider a contribution through Venmo to support this crucial work of unlearning racial bias.

In piece 12, I shared a bit about voter suppression, what it looked like in post-Reconstruction America, and what it looks like in our country today. I will echo a question here that I asked at the end of last week’s post: have you done anything to hold your elected officials accountable for their actions? I have written letters and emails, spoken once during public comments at a commissioners’ meeting and once at a city council meeting – knees knocking and voice shaking but speaking nonetheless. And I’m not done speaking up to advocate for what I think is best for this community, which at the moment is not having a confederate heroes monument looming over the Gregg County Courthouse. 

This week, my focus will shift from voter suppression to wrongful imprisonment. 

Source

There is a scene at the end of episode two of “When They See Us” when one of the characters practices his trumpet in the middle of the street as the camera pulls backward slowly. The tune the young man plays is not recognizable to me, but its mournful tones resonate as deeply as the sorrow in his eyes. 

There is another moment, too, after the boys have been arrested, when they are being interrogated. At one point, one of the boys is asked about to describe his role in raping the young woman who was attacked while jogging through Central Park. The boy’s response is that he “did it to her.” The scene is so deeply uncomfortable because it is transparently clear that the boy is so inexperienced and naive that he is truly perplexed by the specifics of sexual intercourse, let alone the mechanics of a vicious sexual assault.

For these reasons among many others, not the least of which is that a now-prominent politician took out a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the death penalty to be reinstated to execute these then-children, the first resource I am recommending to you this week is the limited-run dramatic series “When They See Us.” I don’t know that I’ve ever before seen such a poignant examination of just how short-lived black childhood truly is in this country. Even today, well into their adult lives, there are people who stubbornly refuse to believe that the now-exonerated individuals who were jailed as a result of this case, had nothing to do with the crime that took place that night in 1989. “When They See Us” does not pretend to be a documentary that presents facts in an unbiased way. Rather, it calls its audience to pause, think, and empathize with the real men after whom these characters are modeled. We are invited to see these wrongfully convicted adult men as the innocent children they once were, and to mourn with them the childhood they lost that can never be returned to them. I recommend watching this series slowly, no more than an episode at a sitting, as it is emotionally heavy. I also recommend staying tuned for the interview between Oprah and the cast, the Exonerated Five, and the visionary director Ava DuVernay. I will be honest and tell you that I wept watching this series and the interview. Even if you are not moved to tears by this tragic story, I hope that you are moved to learn more about this case and others like it, to pay attention to disparate sentencing for similar crimes among different ethnic groups in this country, and that you check yourself for biases you may have when you read news headlines or encounter black strangers in real life.

Source

The second resource I suggest this week is a short TedxTalk from writer Clint Smith. “How to Raise a Black Son in America” succinctly captures the terror of raising a black son in America. He references “the talk” that black parents give their children, the protective, firm admonition to always keep your hands where police can see them. He contextualizes the statement that black lives matter, explaining why it’s necessary to say such a thing and how it isn’t a term meant to exclude anyone but to affirm the dignity of black people’s lives. Smith is a perennial fave of mine. I’ve enjoyed his poetry, his history-based commentary on Pod Save the People, and the occasional Instagram pics he shares of his growing family. This particular TedxTalk, though, was my introduction to his work. It’s as resonant today as it was when I came across it a few years ago – maybe even moreso. I hope that as you watch his brief talk, you’ll fully listen to both the literary and historical context he provides and the personal experience he shares. 

Since this week’s piece is a quarter of the way through the series, my reflection questions will be more cumulative than resource-specific:

  • How do you feel your thinking has changed since you began to read this series?
  • Have you diversified the sources of information from which you draw, beyond the resources I specifically recommend in this blog series?
  • Are you consciously, actively striving to check your biases when you notice them in your everyday life?
  • What action have you taken to advance efforts toward justice, peace, and equity?

As you take in these resources this week, I hope you’ll take deep breaths as well. Breathe through the emotions each piece brings to the surface, allowing yourself to feel deeply the humanity of the children arrested in 1989, of young Clint Smith as he played with friends one night in a hotel parking lot. Come back again next week, and we will keep working together to unlearn racial bias and cultivate peace in our lives and homes and communities, one piece at a time.

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City Council Special Session

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meeting room

When I came home from work today, I quickly prepared the remarks below to share at a special (virtual) meeting of the City Council this evening. I share my words here so that should I be quoted or referenced, the entirety of my message will be here, published on my own platform, in its entirety. I have removed the names of specific people I referenced since I didn’t seek their permission before sharing here.

My name is Querida Duncalfe, and I live in Longview, Tx. I moved here twenty years ago to attend LeTourneau University, met my college sweetheart, married him, and together we have made Longview our home. It is for this reason – that Longview is our home – that I speak to you today.

Photo by Emre Can from Pexels

I’m incredibly grateful for the efforts of innumerable individuals who have answered this call for justice in our city. Even though they have been verbally harassed, threatened, and outright ignored by county commissioners, they have persisted. They understand, as do I, that Longview is home to a rich, diverse group of people who love this city and each other. This warm, inviting city that has become become my home, has no ideological place for a 35 foot tall statue dedicated to so-called “confederate heroes.” 

I hear the argument that this is not a city council issue and it should be left to the county. As a citizen who recently reached out to my elected representatives and has yet to receive any response aside from deflection and “it’s not my job,” I want to share what may be a helpful analogy. To be clear, I generally dislike using analogies; in my mind, the only thing like racism is racism – there is no adequate comparison. Therefore, I won’t attempt to make an analogy about racism, the Confederacy, the Civil War, or even monuments and statues in other places.  Instead, I will attempt to speak to your elected position in our city.

I am a year-ten teacher, it is my job to teach the students entrusted to my care. It is also my duty to do my best to meet the needs they present to me. When students and parents bring concerns to me that I cannot personally address, it would be completely unacceptable for me to tell them that their problem isn’t my job. I am duty bound to pass along their concerns and needs to administrators who can help or intervene – and this is true regardless of my perception of the relative magnitude of the problems they present. In this city and county, are our elected officials not duty-bound to hear and address our concerns rather than dismiss them?

I hear, too, that the statue represents history. It’s vital to note too that the statue doesn’t represent all of Texas history. There are more appropriate, joyful, meaningful historic events that can be captured and memorialized in its place.

Photo by Kelly Lacy from Pexels

I hope and pray that as citizens who have not felt they had a voice before, continue to come forward, that you will listen to our calls for action. Remove the monument. It does not represent the onelongview I call home. It has no place here.

Thank you for your time.

Categories: history2 Comments

Piece 12: About This Right to Vote

Querida # # # #
Peace by Piece

This post is part of a year-long series. If my work is helpful for you, consider a contribution through Venmo to support this crucial work of unlearning racial bias.

Last week, I asked about when you may have pushed back against the voices of people of color in your life when they’ve told you they’ve experienced injustice. I did a version of this very thing myself just a few weeks ago, when a trans friend mentioned JK Rowling’s controversial, bigoted views, and I speculated aloud that Rowling’s particular brand of feminism probably didn’t include the experiences of black women. While my speculating may have been understandable, it served only to push myself to the center of a conversation that wasn’t about me. I was just as wrong in that moment as the white woman in the workplace who listens to her black colleague’s account of being treated differently, only to assert that the reason for that different treatment must be because she is a woman and not because she is black.

Honestly, in both cases, discrimination isn’t necessarily spread equally across marginalized groups because we want it to be so that we, too, can feel included in the exclusion at hand. This week’s piece will focus on a different kind of exclusion: that of voters.

When I began this series, I did what teachers do: I made a plan. Although I have adjusted that plan by moving topics around to reflect current events or to include new resources as I have come across them, neither of those is the case for this week. I planned to write about voter suppression this week because it’s an election year – I had no idea at that time that USPS would be under attack, thereby threatening to slow down or prevent ballots from being received by mail during a pandemic that makes mail-in ballots a necessity for more people than in most election years. When I made this schedule, I didn’t know that the primaries in some states would have already been a virtual catastrophe: social distance ignored in some places while voting locations closed in others, even while people were still queued outside waiting to exercise their right to vote.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels

In light of all this, it’s an especially important time to act to end voter suppression. Therefore, this week’s resource isn’t something to read, watch, or listen to. Rather, this week’s suggestion is to act. Sign the petition, request your ballot early, call your representatives, and buy a sheet or two of Forever stamps. Should you take these steps, you will undoubtedly be helping the Us Postal Service in its time of crisis.

However, this is not enough.

Across the nation – and especially in the south, including Texas – election years find polling locations closed and voters purged from rolls in areas overwhelmingly populated by ethnic minorities. What this means is that people who are American citizens, who are here legally, who have not lost their right to vote as a result of having committed crimes (which shouldn’t happen anyway), are unable to exercise their right to vote. The very right to vote that heroes like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rep. John Lewis, Diane Nash, Rev. CT Vivian, and Annie Lee Cooper fought for us to have, is still being denied to people of color. The same right to vote exercised by many Black Americans during the too-brief era of Reconstruction, before Jim Crow and grandfather clauses and literacy tests, is still being denied to people because of the color of their skin – and presumably, because of how they will likely vote.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Even if you do not consider yourself a patriot, even if you do not vote yourself for your own personal convictions, even if your state or community is not impacted by closed polling places and long lines and early closing times, I hope that you are bothered by the idea that people who have the right to vote and want to do so, can’t. I hope that bothered feeling moves you to act on their behalf. Donate to the causes working on behalf of voters across the nation. Share the petitions calling on our elected officials to properly serve their constituents. Text the numbers that automatically generate emails to your representatives.

And vote. Even if you can’t vote for every category because of your own conscience, please exercise your right to choose who represents you and works on your behalf, making decisions that impact your community. 

Several years ago, one of my students looked at me and earnestly asked me why people should vote if they really don’t feel that any of the people on the ballot represent them. I thought a minute and then answered him directly: If you don’t vote while you can, then you may not be able to vote when you want to. In many places – Texas included – voter rolls are purged of people who are inactive voters. It’s not right. I don’t believe it’s constitutional. But it happens. And voting at every opportunity is the surest way I know to ensure you continue having the ability to vote in the future.

As for me and my house, I am the only person who can vote. I have young children and an immigrant husband. My vote represents us all. Your vote represents more people than just you as well.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels

When you reflect this week on what the 2020 election might look like, and for whom you may cast your ballot, I hope you’ll consider the following:

  • What can you do to help ensure that people in your community are registered to vote?
  • How often do you vote in local elections? Do you keep informed of the issues on the ballot and/or do research before going to the polls?
  • Here in Longview, we’ve had some tense county commissioner meetings regarding the community effort to remove the confederate monument from in front of the county courthouse – the very place where these meetings take place. Much of the recent attempts to sway the commissioners to move the monument have amounted to one basic tenet: holding our elected officials accountable to represent us. Have you held your elected officials accountable for their decision-making? Do you feel they are adequately representing you as part of their constituency? Is your voice being heard? What about the voices of marginalized people groups in your community – are they being heard?

Keep showing up each week to do the work, y’all. Even and maybe especially when we are worn down and want to give up and go home, it’s vital to keep moving forward toward the way of justice and equity. Peace – when we attain it – will not be a victory easily won; we will have fought for it, one piece at a time.

Categories: peace by piece2 Comments

An Open Letter to First-Year Teachers

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mask

Dear First-Year Teachers,

It isn’t always like this.

Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels

My first year of teaching, an experienced teacher said to me over lunch one day that if we could just get teachers to stick with it for five years, they were much more likely to stick with teaching for the whole of their career. She was speaking generally of trends in teachers leaving while the job was hard, before they really got the groove of what they were doing. But I think she could sense my unrest. My unease. My then-untreated anxiety.

Her words have stayed with me, through multiple teaching jobs across different districts, in both public and private schools, and even during my time spent as a stay-at-home mom to my two sons. Although I am sure she did not intend to impact me this way with her words, I came away from that conversation with a weight: if I couldn’t stick it out for five consecutive years, was I really even a teacher? What if I didn’t stay in one place that long? If I left my job to start a family with my husband, did I have any right to come back later?

Here is what I want to say to you: whatever questions, doubts, and anxieties you have this year – of all years – it isn’t always like this.

On the other side of this pandemic are peace and calm.

On the other side of first year jitters is a second-year stride.

On the other side of learning content and curriculum jargon for the first time is a deeper understanding of what’s expected of you with each year that passes.

On the other side of that one student that just seems to try and find ways to butt heads with you is a tried and true strategy for connecting with similar kids you’ll meet in twenty years.

It isn’t always like this.

Photo by August de Richelieu from Pexels

Please take heart in knowing that the muscles you are developing now as you navigate hybrid in-person and distance learning, magick up new ways to introduce yourself to children you may not see in person for weeks or even months into the new school year, will not only make you strong for the kids in your care, but they will also make you strong for yourself. You will be resilient. You will be wise. You will thrive.

None of us has done this before, not even the fifty-year veteran teacher who has had to walk to school uphill, both ways, in the snow, has taught during a pandemic on this scale. Do the best you can each moment, and know that it’s enough. Protect your physical health and wellness as best you can. Find your marigold. Ignore the tone-deaf advice to always put on a brave face for the kids or to develop a thick skin against criticism [that way lies madness; so stay soft]. Perhaps most importantly, safeguard the boundaries you put in place in order to remain balanced and whole outside the classroom.

Your expertise and abilities are enough. Your creativity and unique personality are needed. Your care and concern are valued.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

It isn’t always like this, first year teacher, and it probably never will be again.

Keep showing up in the most fearless, honest version of yourself you can muster. And we will all get to the other side of this, together.

– Q, a year-ten teacher who believes in you

Categories: uncharted territory4 Comments

Who are we?

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Who were we in the past?

Who are we now?

Who do we want to be in the future?

Longview native Matthew McConaughey recently stated that based on where we live and where we grow up, we may have “allergies” to certain aspects of our nation’s history. In other words, we may be unaware of prejudices we have that blind us to other people’s perspectives.

This seems to be the case here in Longview. While one part of our local community respects heroic Confederate soldiers who died in service to a romanticized Lost Cause, “lest we forget,” as the statue’s inscription states, a different part of the same community despises the society that seceded from America to protect a way of life that included enslaving their ancestors.

Primary view of object titled '[Bodie Park]'.

The confederate monument that currently stands on the courthouse lawn was erected in 1910 and stood in Bodie Park, at the corner of Fredonia and Tyler.  In 1932, the statue was moved from Bodie Park to its current place just outside this building. An honest look at the political and social unrest prevalent in this country during that time period will reveal the motivation for both erecting this monument and for moving it to stand in a place of prominence on our courthouse lawn. 

What message do we want to send to visitors and citizens who come here? Is our message that a portion of our courthouse grounds is dedicated to confederate “heroes,” as the monument’s inscription states? Is our message that confederate soldiers are more important than veterans of other wars, as the unequal sizes of both monuments on the courthouse lawn suggest? Is our message that if you want to come vote, renew your car registration, or get a marriage license, that you must first observe this monument to history apparently honored by our community? Is our message that we have allergies so severe that we can’t properly contextualize this aspect of our country’s history?

If we are indeed one Longview, as Mayor Mack says, then we need to change that message. We need to look at our community: talented artists, beautiful outdoor spaces, cultural events that represent our community’s diverse population, family-friendly activities to keep our children actively engaged, and savvy entrepreneurs opening small businesses that are thriving even amid our country’s trying economic times. 

We can choose to keep this statue in place to protect a status quo that harms, intimidates, and traumatizes a broad swath of our community, or we can choose to craft a new vision of our city, where old and young, ethnically and religiously diverse, dedicated, hardworking, and talented people work together build something new: an accurate, current, unified message about who we are.

We are one Longview – Strongview, Texas – we have within us everything we need to bring positive change to our community.

Who were we in the past?

Who are we now?

Who do we want to be in the future?

Categories: Uncategorized1 Comment

Piece 11: Kalief Browder

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Peace by Piece

This post is part of a year-long series. If my work is helpful for you, consider a contribution through Venmo to support this crucial work of unlearning racial bias.

A driving reason I think it is so important to reflect on the stories we are told about people who don’t look like us, is so that we understand the biases we may be susceptible to. If, for example, all we ever see of black people on TV is that they are either getting into trouble or being rescued from trouble by people who are not black, then we begin to expect the same of black people when we encounter them in real life. It’s for this reason that if we offer a handout or social invitation to an acquaintance of color, we may become deeply offended if they don’t accept. We were so obviously being magnanimous in offering them an experience they wouldn’t otherwise have access to – which we know, of course, because it’s all we have seen.

It’s super important to check the source of these biases so we can root them out of our minds thoroughly. 

Conversely, young Kalief Browder believed in the goodness of being American: the inherent dignity and legal rights he was owed. He believed that his blackness did not in any way negate his entitlement to equitable treatment under the law. And instead of our system of justice fulfilling his rightful expectations, it let him down with fatal results.

I first heard the name of Kalief Browder several years ago, in connection with Jay-Z. No doubt I heard about his story on a morning show or saw him in a picture with a celebrity who amplified his story in hope of helping him to get justice. A short time later, he was gone. 

Even though he had been released from prison after a three-year stay in one of the most notorious prisons in the country – Rikers Island – Browder succumbed to the lingering ghosts of the horrors he had experienced. 

Source

But let’s begin at the beginning.

Kalief Browder was adopted as a baby, brought into a loving home where his mother had already fostered and adopted other children. By all appearances, he had a loving, open relationship with his siblings and mother but a rather fraught one with his father. After his parents divorced, Browder remained with his mother. And like some of his siblings before him, he turned to his surroundings for connection and guidance. In Browder’s case, his surroundings included gang activity that led him to make some wrong choices. As a result, he found himself on probation at the age of sixteen. So when he was stopped by police on suspicion of having stolen a backpack, and was subsequently arrested, he was unable to be bailed out by his family even after they scraped together enough money, because the arrest was a violation of his probation.

When you watch Time: The Kalief Browder Story, you will no doubt find yourself angry at the circumstances of his arrest – a secondhand witness whose story kept changing, a years-long stay on Rikers that included months of solitary and multiple suicide attempts, a judicial system that kept putting off his case, which forced him back into an environment where he was repeatedly beaten. I have no doubt, too, that you’ll want to scream at the guards, judges, and attorneys who time after time allowed his case to be delayed while he remained in custody on Rikers. And I suspect that you will agree with me that Kalief Browder didn’t take his own life any more than his mother died as a result of heart trouble; rather, our country’s inefficient judicial system killed this young man and by extension his mother as well.

So why, then, would I suggest that you watch such a horrific, disturbing story? How could any modicum of peace possibly be found in such heartache? 

Because it happened.

There’s no embellishment or spin that sensationalizes Browder’s story away from the truth of its happening. Every detail of it is factual. The system worked exactly the way it was designed to work. And the result of that system and those facts was that Browder died at a tragically young age, after suffering from physical and psychological abuse made even more harrowing by the fact he endured such abuses during his formative years, before his brain and body had even finished developing.

Source

When I re-watched Browder’s story recently, it struck me that at the time of his arrest, he was the same age as many of the students I have taught. Sixteen: that awkward age when boys’ voices may still be changing such that they don’t hear how the bass in their voices carries across the room, making it impossible for them to whisper. That uncertain age when hormones fluctuate so frequently and everyone else seems to develop faster than they do, yielding sometimes awkward excitement about their facial hair. That wonderful age full of hope and expectation, of unspeakable joys and indescribable lows. I could have been his teacher, constantly pushing him to do his best and then one day wondering where he went, if he had transferred or moved, only to discover years down the road that he had been arrested and later died.

James Baldwin once said that he didn’t know if labor unions and their bosses really hate black people, but he knew black people weren’t in their unions. He said he didn’t know if the real estate lobbies have anything against black people, but he knew their lobbies keep black people in the ghetto. He didn’t know if the board of education had anything against black people, but he knew the textbooks they give our children to read and the schools that we have to go to. Baldwin said, “You want me to make an act of faith on some idealism which you assure me exists in America, which I have never seen,” echoing Langston Hughes’s assertion that America is the land that never has been yet.

Kalief Browder, beautiful, hopeful, full of potential, and brimming with the expectation that the system would eventually work in his favor, never got to see that America that never has been. He held fast to the act of faith Baldwin speaks of, believing that in America justice must exist. And the system failed him utterly. It killed him.

If we are interested in pursuing peace and reconciliation, we must acknowledge stories like Browder’s that block so many of our friends and neighbors from feeling that sense of carefree idealism that we may take for granted in ourselves. In other words, there is no real peace without real truth. There’s no reconciliation without a reckoning.

Source

As you watch Time: The Kalief Browder Story this week, I hope you will consider the following:

  • When have you turned a blind eye to the agony of your neighbor in order to safeguard your own sense of peace?
  • Have you pushed back when people of color in your life have told you about their experiences of injustice, silencing the voices of their experience?
  • Where in your life and relationships can you find space to breathe peace into your friends of color by offering them a compassionate listening ear?

Keep showing up to this space each week, and in time, peace will be ours: one piece at a time.

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Piece 10: 12 Years a Slave

Querida # # #
Peace by Piece

This post is part of a year-long series. If my work is helpful for you, consider a contribution through Venmo to support this crucial work of unlearning racial bias.

As this series has taken shape, I have begun each week’s post by answering a question or two that I posted to you the prior week. So I’ll share with you what makes people worthy of the title “hero” in my eyes. To me, a hero is a person who is consistent, trustworthy, and visible in the lives of the people who love them. A hero is true to who they are and treats others with kindness whenever possible. A hero leads with ferocity and integrity. In all they do, a hero leads by example. Heroes are people like Solomon Northrup and Beyoncé.

Source

Years ago, when the movie 12 Years a Slave hit theaters, I had no idea it was based on Solomon Northrup’s real life experiences. With only Oscar buzz and the movie’s title as my informers, I assumed 12 Years a Slave was another antebellum revenge fantasy. Following its release, the beautiful, talented, and undoubtedly deserving Lupita Nyong’o received an Oscar for her role in 12 Years a Slave. And even in my joy and excitement at witnessing Nyong’o make history with her win, I felt a deep underlying sadness at the nature of the role for which she had received this critical acclaim. The one thing that had kept me from seeing the movie was not what I suspected was a revenge fantasy, or even the particular type of weariness that arises from repeatedly seeing the same trodden-down narrative of black people play out on the screen; rather, I was held back from seeing the movie by the anecdotal knowledge that Nyong’o’s character had a brutal rape scene. As a personal practice, I don’t watch or read anything that includes that particular kind of violence. This isn’t a critique of actors or writers who portray such scenes; I am simply too visual a person to put those kinds of intimately sexually traumatic images into my mind.

So I avoided 12 Years a Slave even though I wanted badly to see this beautiful actress’s award-winning debut role, even though I was a fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor, even though it was a movie telling a decidedly black American story – which is typically exactly the type of movie I want to see. I kept 12 Years a Slave at arm’s length until I stumbled across the fact that it was based on a true story, and I became interested in that story. The first resource I recommend this week is Twelve Years a Slave – the book, not the movie. I remain resolved not to see it, especially after I listened to this memoir – which does not include the brutal rape scene depicted in the film. The character and the crimes perpetrated on her while she was in bondage are between the lines of Northrup’s prose, but graphic details of brutal, forced sex acts are blessedly absent. 12 Years a Slave employs the kind of language that 21st century Americans like myself almost have to cut with a fork and knife in order to digest it. His vocabulary and sentence structure are educated, expansive, and positively drenched in his inherent sense of dignity and a dogged determination to win back the freedom stolen from him; none of that language includes a detailed description of sexual assault. 

Source

The second resource I recommend this week is Beyoncé’s Black is King. Where the popularity and overwhelmingly positive critical reception of the film adaptation of 12 Years a Slave illustrate a disturbing American fascination with glorifying black pain – even if doing so means manufacturing some of that pain, as the opening scenes of the film do – Black is King diverges. Black is King tells a story of love, hope, and a steadfast connection that transcends time, space, and even remains once our physical bodies die. Black is King skillfully weaves African artists, imagery, religion, scenery, and timeless beauty, to exalt black joy, black strength, black dignity. To study these two stories and the popular response to both is, I believe, to see with fresh eyes the expectation of the dominant culture in America. Black people are always expected to be submissive to their pain and struggles while observers who are not themselves on the margins with black Americans cry for a moment and then move on with their lives: never changing, never changed.

Truly, what Black is King aims for – and I believe achieves – is an unapologetic, unflinching display of black beauty. If our cultural response to such a stunning feat is to criticize Beyoncé’s wardrobe, to point out that the only white actor in the film is a butler, or to condemn as heresy the visual album’s audacity, then we show the black people in our lives just exactly how we expect them to view themselves and by extension, how we view them: as broken, as weary, as vessels through which to filter our own pain – and nothing more. [Bonus: Lupita Nyong’o makes a brief, glorious, affirming cameo in Black is King.]

As you decide which of these suggested resources you have the time and emotional breadth to absorb this week, I hope you will reflect on these questions:

  • Recall your favorite books and movies that feature black characters. What stories are being told about those characters – are they in pain, struggling, or being helped out of a struggle, particularly by characters who are not black?
  • How often are you taking in stories, books, and movies that showcase black people telling black stories? 
  • Where in your own mind and heart are you celebrating the prevalent cultural narrative that black Americans are situated rightly only when they are in pain, shepherding non-black people through their pain, or magnanimously forgiving others for pain inflicted on them?

Keep sticking with this hard, necessary work. It’s worth it to show the black people in your life that you are doing the work it takes to show up for them, alongside them, with them. Meet me back here next week, and we will keep working together toward peace, one piece at a time. 

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